Guild Wars 2

I’m not the greatest gw1 lore buff. I don’t know if Shiro was a stealth maniac, but as an assassin in kinda makes sense for him to bring stealth to the table. Consider this. Currently both Mesmers and Thieves have access to stealth. That’s one for light armor and one for medium. If Anet wants to balance out distribution of mechanics it would make sense for stealth to be added with the legend that fits it so perfectly and to the only armor class lacking it. Stealth would be a great tool to allow Revenants to regenerate energy safely and be able to cast abilities with lengthy cast times without being interrupted. Seems like a match! Why add stealth to a heavy armor profession though? Aren’t they already tanky? Meh. Not too many forms of active defense outside of staff and blinds from Salvation. Retribution really just makes you take % reduced damage. Consider Mesmers with their countless evades, blinks, interrupts, blocks, and blinds and they have a medium health pool to boot. They got stealth. I don’t see a problem with giving it to Revenants and I’m excited to see if they do! COME ON WEEK, GO FASTER!

there was no stealth in gw1 and shiro was nothing like a thief

Jekkt.6045:

there was no stealth in gw1 and shiro was nothing like a thief

Howered..revenant should get access to it. If they naturally want to keep him “unique”. It actually makes a sense due to his “dark magic”.

Jekkt.6045:

there was no stealth in gw1 and shiro was nothing like a thief

But he was an assassin and could and probably would have had stealth if it was a mechanic in the first game.

rytlock’s sword attack was a stealth move in the trailer though. but it’s probably just that 1 skill

I sure hope not. Stealth for the most part is a rather annoying mechanic. We don’t need dps classes with heavy armor running around in stealth now to

Well they like symmetry. They wanted 3 class of each armor. They wanted one class for each armor without weapon swap (ele, engineer, revenant), now they can very well have one class per armor type with decent access to stealth (mesmer, thief, revenant).

Bleep no! Hate stealth. Hate thief. Hope Monk Thief dont rely on stealth.

we don’t know for a fact that was stealth
it’s the same particle effects as Hammer 3 and Staff 5
it could very well be just that

As said, stealth was not a mechanic from GW1, however, Nika in GW2 has stealth now so I don’t see why Shiro wouldnt have. Besides lore-wise you can’t see Shiro unless you are “Closer to the Stars” (a canthan ascention) so it actually makes some kind of sense.

steve.2945:

rytlock’s sword attack was a stealth move in the trailer though. but it’s probably just that 1 skill

That is more of a “go invulrerable and hit X targets”
If you play MOBAs think Master Yi alpha strike
or Juggernauts Omnislash

Actually the skill was very similar in animation to hammer 3 which was not even invulnerable.

Shiro never utilized stealth. He was known more for his brutal strength than he was for tactical moves.

It’s highly doubtful that we’ll be getting stealth with him.

Silverkey.2078:

Well they like symmetry. They wanted 3 class of each armor. They wanted one class for each armor without weapon swap (ele, engineer, revenant), now they can very well have one class per armor type with decent access to stealth (mesmer, thief, revenant).

The existence of ranger and engie kinda throws off your symmetry thing, but nice try. Also trapper runes + dragon hunter = stealthing heavy.

In the teaser, the skill rytlock used looked more like, “shadowstep sequentially to X foes, hitting each for Y”

No.

No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. NO!!!!!!!!!

I refuse to cavort with the idea of this half-finished class being slapped with the broken stealth mechanic. It will just make it appear to have a round playstyle, when in fact it will be kitten.

Oh, you have the hp of a terminal cancer patient and the speed of a thousand year old tortoise on heroin? Well, we’ll just give you kittening stealth and you can be as troll a class as thieves.

Jekkt.6045:

there was no stealth in gw1 and shiro was nothing like a thief

Shiro was, in fact, an assassin. He actually had a chance to drop an assassin tome like assassin bosses.

Assassin’s are the ‘spiritual predecessor’ of the thief. The thief’s “Deadly Arts”, “Critical Strikes” and “Shadow Arts” come from assassins. They then added stealing, acrobatics and tricks to the mix.

In GW1 there was no stealth effects, but that wasn’t a lore thing, but a mechanical one. Things that sounded like they would give assassins something like stealth gave them regeneration, armor, invulnerability and other defensive stuff instead. But if stealth existed in GW1, it would have made sense for these skills to give stealth:

• Heart of Shadow
• Shadow Refuge
• Shadow Sanctuary
• Shroud of Distress
• Shadow Form

Still, Shiro had skills like Battle Scars and Impossible Odds.

You don’t get those by being sneaky and stealthy. Battle scars says Shiro took lots of hits, and you get those fighting in the open, and Impossible Odds says that he survived against countless enemies at the same time, again enforcing the idea that he fought in the open when he can be seen instea being sneaky and taking enemies one by one.

He was also one of the rare ‘norn size’ humans. Incredibly tall for a normal human, about the hight of a short norn. And it gets harder to be sneaky when you are that big.

Another of his skills, Riposting Shadows, has a ‘shadow’ in it, but that one actually refers to ‘shadow steps’ not ‘defensive shadows’ like other skills that could have had stealth.

So while shiro was an assassin, and it would have made sense for assassins to use stealth, it would not have made much sense for shiro to use stealth often in battle, and so it should not be a big focus of his legend. Shiro relied much more on blocks and counters.

Yet again, after he became an envoy, he picked up some ritualist stuff. And was able to ‘shift’ in an out of the physical plane. He could become intangible and invisible until he recovered his body, as he was basically a poerful ghost as an envoy.

So stealth for Shiro could be at most 2s in a single skill, like the healing one. But never much more than that.

Shiro wasn’t quite like the assassins we see in GW1. He was very much more like what we see a warrior do in GW2. You also have to remember that how professions are defined and what they can and can’t do changes pretty drastically as time goes on. Since Shiro was from a different time period, even compared to the first game, the Roll of the assassin in Cantha might have been more loosely defined back when Shiro was first alive than during the time about 250 years ago. Shiro could hold his own against a tone of people. He wasn’t like a thief or even very much like a assassin from the first game. He was the kind of Assassin who’d walk right into the base of the enemy, kicking down the front door and slaughter everyone in his wake. He was ruthless. Not one to hide in the shadows.

Shiro Even has a thing about facing his enemy head on. He even says “This time I’m facing you.” in the story, heavily suggesting that stabbing someone in the back is cowardly and he doesn’t like it.

Basically to answer you question. No.. He isn’t bringing stealth.

I remember when Shiro was kinda new to GW1 lore and there was a discussion whether he’s a warrior or assassin. Now they describe him as an assassin though I still think he borrows a lot from a warrior. Also, he uses his own skillset and doesn’t really fit to either profession – compared to most bosses in GW1.

That said I don’t think that the Shiro stance will have stealth. I assume this one particular skill we see in the HOT trailer is a single move and hits several targets.

Shiro didn’t use stealth, he used teleporting vampiric double/quadruple attacks when he combined Battlescars, Riposting Shadows, and Impossible Odds. It was very… unpleasant if you didn’t have any way to remove stances or didn’t have pain inverter.

The banish thing he did is still burnt into my hatred banks.

steve.2945:

rytlock’s sword attack was a stealth move in the trailer though. but it’s probably just that 1 skill

Errr, I thought he was shadowing stepping with the sword not stealthing but I could be wrong. I’d prefer the shadowing stepping idea instead for attack skills. Rev’s need to be so bad-kitten they won’t need a stealth, everyone just runs when they see them coming!

Provost.6210:

No.

No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. NO!!!!!!!!!

I refuse to cavort with the idea of this half-finished class being slapped with the broken stealth mechanic. It will just make it appear to have a round playstyle, when in fact it will be kitten.

Oh, you have the hp of a terminal cancer patient and the speed of a thousand year old tortoise on heroin? Well, we’ll just give you kittening stealth and you can be as troll a class as thieves.

LOL! Agreed! XD